


The Battle

by mireh_lilav



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Final Battle, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 22:26:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17875988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mireh_lilav/pseuds/mireh_lilav
Summary: The final battle is not what Jon has imagined it to be.





	The Battle

The final battle is not what Jon has imagined it to be.

There is all sorts of movement and commotion around him - in fact, it seems that he is in a centre of giant whirlpool of bodies. Two armies have clashed - the undead and the living, the Wights and the knights, the fire-breathing dragons and the giant spiders that crawl at the corners of his vision. Everything moves so drastically around him as his head spins and violent shivers travel up and down his spine. He should stay alerted, he should be paying attention to his surroundings, he should be on his toes and yet, even though the feeling of impending doom is creeping on him from all the sides, he cannot bring himself to work through this strange stupor he has fallen into.

Nothing that surrounds him in this icy chaos makes any sense to him. He whips his head around to find something to anchor himself, anything would actually do. Yet, there is nothing to steady his swimming vision as the waves of the undead crash against shielded chests and fur-coated sides. The faint glimmers of light dance on the raised swords, they flicker lightly as the sun sets behind a thick curtain of clouds that shrouds the whole battlefield in greys and shadows. As if in defiance, a few blades here and there light up with bright orangish flames and when they come down onto the adversary, they grant their wielders a moment of respite as the dead back down for a blink of an eye. Fire and dragon glass still seem to grant those who wield them a slight upper hand. Somehow along the lines of raging battle, these have become the glimmers of hope - the last ones that still grant the living something akin to survival chances.

Yet, Jon knows they are not going to last forever. He still can clearly recall the strange, almost stupefied euphoria mixed with inhumane fear when he managed to kill his first White Walker back at the Hardhome. Back then he let himself feel the tiniest bit of hope - maybe, just maybe there was a chance for them to win. Sure, it would be an extremely difficult task - far more difficult than anything he had done so far but still manageable. Maybe, just maybe he would find a way to gather others from Westeros and get them to fight against their common enemy.

He harboured those hopeful thoughts deep in his heart as they made their way back to the Wall. He nurtured them that night when Olly burst through the door with what seemed to be the best possible news at that time. Just moments after he felt the blades pierce his skin, graze his ribs and drink his blood and even then, looking into the Northern sky, he thought that there still had to be a way to turn the tables around and to save the world from the grim fate of being one big graveyard of the Night King. He cannot recall the last thought that passed through his mushy mind as he departed this world but he likes to think that it was one filled with hope for the living.

He is shaken from his thoughts by the fire that suddenly rises all around him. There comes a dragon - in all the glory of raging flames and flaming rage. Their ultimate weapon, one of the two surviving children of the Dragon Queen. It glides over the battlefield with a terrifying grace of a creature that was moulded and born from the fire. The rhythm of the battle set by the constant pull and push of the armies falters as the dragon’s roars ring in the air. Jon gives himself the luxury of awe as he admires the fluid motions of the beast and for a moment there he feels his hope resurface and swell around his battered heart - he might have been resurrected but his heart still bears the pain of the piercing blade.

In the meantime Rhaegal ends his glide across the battlefield and with a few powerful flaps of its wings, it soars into the gloomy sky. The dragon loosely circles the battlefield and begins his next descent onto the foe. There is so much grace and beauty in its movement that Jon’s breath catches in his throat. He can only imagine what the regular soldiers of countless battles of the past must have felt once they saw the beast nearing them with its fiery breath. He ponders briefly if it is possible that the dead fear the dragons too. Do they know fear? Are they able to feel anything at all? His body tingles with anticipation of the next fire wave as Rhaegal begins to lower his flight once again. Jon sees its body vibrating with rising fire and the powerful jaws open in a blood freezing screech that precedes the fire. But the next wave of fiery death does not come.

There is sudden commotion in the air that Jon notes at the corners of his vision and Rhaegal is descending gracefully no more as a massive blur of limbs and scales rams into it. Spikes of horror erupt somewhere below Jon’s ribs as he takes in the sight right over his head - Rhaeagal manages to steady its flight bouncing off of the nearest hill and launching itself into the air to face the newly arrived adversary. And what an adversary it is - Jon wishes his eyes were deceiving him. The hope that dwelled at the bottom of his heart is crushed without mercy as he stares at none other than Viserion. Good, old Viserion that they all saw die and disappear in the murky waters of the ever frozen lake. The same one that was hit by the Night King’s spear is now hanging in the mid air, uncharacteristically silent and with his eyes trained onto… His eyes! Jon nearly chokes when he understands what he is looking at - it is not the dragon he first saw at the Dragonstone, it is not the beast that Danerys treated as her child, it is a Wight. He can feel his world spin in the face of this revelation. He can feel a violent shiver shaking his whole body and locking up his jaw. He fights to overcome the rising panic as the bile threaten to escape his throat. Dragons were supposed to be their last glimmer of hope. Their last chance to turn the tides and save the world. And now it all comes crushing down as he accepts the horrible truth - The Night King can not only challenge a dragon, kill it with his icy spear but he is apparently able to turn it into his mindless slave as well.

 _We are doomed._ Rhaegal lets out a low gurgling noise in which tones of fear, pity and rage ring like a hollow bronze. _We are doomed._ Both dragons clash in an explosion of fire that rains down onto the fighters as it mixes with snow. _We are doomed_. Fire and snow. _We are doomed_. Fire and Snow. W _e are doomed and there is no salvation._ With another blinding explosion ripping through the air, both dragons - limbs and wings tangled, claws and fangs searching each other’s flesh, fire dancing on their scales - fall from the sky and crash onto the frozen ground. _We are going to die._ Drogon’s screeching scream sounds like a wail for his siblings, yet there is nothing they can do to save either of them. _This is the end._

But the fate, oh the cruel fate, knows no mercy for Jon Snow. It has never known mercy for him - not when he was informed about his family’s gruesome end, not when people he led and whom he trusted assassinated him and left him to die, not when he finally accepted death and its silent, indifferent darkness only to be pulled back by the Red Priestess. There is no mercy for these like Jon. And so his world does not end with both dragons falling down and unleashing a fiery rain of soil, stones and their reptilian body parts onto the dead and the living alike. The roaring fire muffles the screaming of men and the screeching of Weights. And in all of that he still stands. Unbowed, unbent and unbroken - even though, oh irony, he is a dead man walking. And so he takes a deep breath, he grips his sword a little bit too hard and turns around to meet his fate.

Across the field of fire, massacred human remains and dragon carcasses, stands the Night King. Unmoved, unfazed and unbothered, if Jon dares to say so. There is this strange aura of deadly calmness and unchallengeable will around his figure. The fearsome King, who turned Viserys into a Wight, does nothing but observes Jon. And Jon nearly falters under an alien scrutinising gaze - he feels like a carcass being opened to the world to see his rotting intestines and his misshapen heart. He gathers the shreds of courage that are left within his mind and soul and urges his feet to move forward.

He might not be many things. He is not a legitimate child. _You’re Ned Stark’s bastard, aren’t you?_ He is not a Stark. _Lord Snow wants to take my place now_. He is not knowledgeable. _You know nothing, Jon Snow._ But he will still fight and so he locks his gaze with the one of the Night King.

Their fates have been intertwined ever since their paths crossed at Hardhome. The image of the mighty White Walker king with blazing azure eyes and hands raised in a mockery of friendly beckoning and blessing has been burned out under his eyelids - it was the first image that lit up in his mind after his resurrection. He has never mentioned it, too scared to admit to others and to himself that the Night King has become the part of his destiny. Others would probably rejoice back then taking it as a good sign, one that would mark him as the Chosen One, the Promised Saviour and their Hope. Yet, Jon knows, he is neither of these things. He is Jon Snow and with that he walks across the field towards his final fight.

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired to write this piece after watching "Beyond the Wall" (07x06) - it doesn't really follow the story delineated by the rest of the season and it's my very own (loose) interpretation of what the final battle might have looked like. 
> 
> I like Jon Snow as a Reluctant Saviour.


End file.
